UC-NRLF 


mum 


SB    312    122 


4 

<*4 


ROSE  LEAF  AND  APPLE  LEAF 


Seve?ity-five  copies  of  this  book  have  been 
printed  on  Japan  vellum,,  and  the  type 
distributed. 

No.¥/ 


ROSE  LEAF  AND  APPLE  LEAF 

* -~ ' 

^7>  \^*^^  Wf/  r^.    /    f 

By    Rennell    Rodd    with    an 
Introduction  by  Oscar  Wilde 


PRINTED  FOR  THOMAS  B  MOSHER 
AND  PUBLISHED  BY  HIM  AT 
XL  V  EXCHANGE  STREET 
PORTLAND   MAINE  MDCCCCVI 


COPYRIGHT 

By  J.  M.  STODDART  &  CO. 

1882 

By  THOMAS  B.  MOSHER 
1906 


(  c     <       • 

I  <        C  t      ( 


1      c      (C 


CONTENTS 


L' Envoi      .... 

by  oscar  wilde 

Rose  Leaf  and  Apple  Leaf 


PAGE 


FROM  THE  HILL  OF  GARDENS 

25 

IN  THE  COLISEUM 

27 

THE  SEA-KING'S  GRAVE 

28 

A  ROMAN  MIRROR 

32 

BY  THE  SOUTH  SEA 

34 

IN  A  CHURCH 

39 

AT  LANUVIUM           . 

42 

"IF  ANY  ONE  RETURN" 

44 

Sonnets  : 

"une  heure  viendra  qui    tout 

PAIERA"    .....  49 

ACTEA 50 

IMPERATOR  AUGUSTUS    .  .  .  5 1 

"ATQUE      IN      PERPETUUM     FRATER 

AVE    ATQUE   VALE"      .  .  .  52 

ON  THE  BORDER  HILLS  .  .  .  53 

vii 


57K235 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 


Songs : 


LONG  AFTER  .... 

"WHERE    THE    RHONE    GOES    DOWN 


TO  THE  SEA' 
A  SONG  OF  AUTUMN 

Epwros  *  AvSos 


PAGE 

57 

59 
61 

62 


ATALANTA      . 

63 

THE  DAISY      .... 

•      65 

"WHEN  I  AM  DEAD" 

66 

AFTER  HEINE 

68 

"THOSE  DAYS  ARE  LONG  DEPARTED' 

'         69 

A  STAR-DREAM          .             .             .         , 

7» 

AFTER  HEINE 

73 

AFTER  HEINE 

74 

ENDYMION      .... 

75 

DISILLUSION 

•         78 

REQUIESCAT 

80 

IN  CHARTRES  CATHEDRAL 

81 

HIC  JACET       .... 

•        83 

AT  TIBER  MOUTH    . 

•         8S 

Bibliographical  Note 


93 


L'ENVOI 


»  »  J  '   ' 

I      >      »    ' 


,   ,  ,  ,    >      •»,»»» 


*    > 

)    > 


'    '   .    '   >»  »  »    >  > 

J.J 


......  I       »      >    >      >    '  ' 


L'ENVOI 


AMONGST  the  many  young  men  in  Eng- 
land who  are  seeking  along  with  me  to 
continue  and  to  perfect  the  English  Renaissance 
— -jeunes  guerriers  du  drapeau  romantique,  as 
Gautier  would  have  called  us  —  there  is  none 
whose  love  of  art  is  more  flawless  and  fervent, 
whose  artistic  sense  of  beauty  is  more  subtle 
and  more  delicate  —  none,  indeed,  who  is 
dearer  to  myself  —  than  the  young  poet  whose 
verses  I  have  brought  with  me  to  America ; 
verses  full  of  sweet  sadness,  and  yet  full  of 
joy  ;  for  the  most  joyous  poet  is  not  he  who 
sows  the  desolate  highways  of  this  world  with 
the  barren  seed  of  laughter,  but  he  who  makes 
his  sorrow  most  musical,  this  indeed  being  the 
meaning  of  joy  in  art  —  that  incommunicable 
element  of  artistic  delight  which,  in  poetry,  for 
instance,  comes  from  what  Keats  called  the 
"  sensuous  life  of  verse,"  the  element  of  song 


I     • 


L'ENVOI 


in  the  singing,  made  so  pleasurable  to  us  by 
that  wonder  of  motion  which  often  has  its 
origin  in  mere  musical  impulse,  and  in  paint- 
ing is  to  be  sought  for,  from  the  subject  never, 
but  from  the  pictorial  charm  only  —  the 
scheme  and  symphony  of  the  colour,  the  satis- 
fying beauty  of  the  design  :  so  that  the  ulti- 
mate expression  of  our  artistic  movement  in 
painting  has  been,  not  in  the  spiritual  visions 
of  the  pre-Raphaelites,  for  all  their  marvel  of 
Greek  legend  and  their  mystery  of  Italian 
song,  but  in  the  work  of  such  men  as  Whistler 
and  Albert  Moore,  who  have  raised  design 
and  colour  to  the  ideal  level  of  poetry  and 
music.  For  the  quality  of  their  exquisite  paint- 
ing comes  from  the  mere  inventive  and  crea- 
tive handling  of  lime  and  colour,  from  a  certain 
form  and  choice  of  beautiful  workmanship, 
which,  rejecting  all  literary  reminiscence  and 
all  metaphysical  idea,  is  in  itself  entirely  satis- 
fying to  the  aesthetic  sense  —  is,  as  the  Greeks 
would  say,  an  end  in  itself ;  the  effect  of  their 
work  being  like  the  effect  given  to  us  by  music  ; 


L'ENVOl  5 

for  music  is  the  art  is  which  form  and  matter 
are  always  one  —  the  art  whose  subject  cannot 
be  separated  from  the  method  of  its  expression  ; 
the  art  which  most  completely  realises  for  us 
the  artistic  ideal,  and  is  the  condition  to  which 
all  the  other  arts  are  constantly  aspiring. 

Now,  this  increased  sense  of  the  absolutely 
satisfying  value  of  beautiful  workmanship,  this 
recognition  of  the  primary  importance  of  the 
sensuous  element  in  art,  this  love  of  art  for 
art's  sake,  is  the  point  in  which  we  of  the 
younger  school  have  made  a  departure  from 
the  teaching  of  Mr.  Ruskin,  —  a  departure 
definite  and  different  and  decisive. 

Master  indeed  of  the  knowledge  of  all  noble 
living  and  of  the  wisdom  of  all  spiritual  things 
will  he  be  to  us  ever,  seeing  that  it  was  he  who 
by  the  magic  of  his  presence  and  the  music  of 
his  lips  taught  us  at  Oxford  that  enthusiasm 
for  beauty  which  is  the  secret  of  Hellenism, 
and  that  desire  for  creation  which  is  the  secret 
of  life,  and  filled  some  of  us,  at  least,  with  the 
lofty  and  passionate  ambition  to  go  forth  into 


I        I     I 
«  »     t     « 


6 "  '     L'lNVOI 

far  and  fair  lands  with  some  message  for  the 
nations  and  some  mission  for  the  world,  and 
yet  in  his  art  criticism,  his  estimate  of  the 
joyous  element  of  art,  his  whole  method  of 
approaching  art,  we  are  no  longer  with  him  ; 
for  the  keystone  to  his  aesthetic  system  is 
ethical  always.  He  would  judge  of  a  picture  by 
the  amount  of  noble  moral  ideas  it  expresses  ; 
but  to  us  the  channels  by  which  all  noble 
work  in  painting  can  touch,  and  does  touch, 
the  soul  are  not  those  of  truths  of  life  or 
metaphysical  truths.  To  him  perfection  of 
workmanship  seems  but  the  symbol  of  pride, 
and  incompleteness  of  technical  resource  the 
image  of  an  imagination  too  limitless  to  find 
within  the  limits  of  form  its  complete  expres- 
sion, or  of  a  love  too  simple  not  to  stammer  in 
its  tale.  But  to  us  the  rule  of  art  is  not  the  rule 
of  morals.  In  an  ethical  system,  indeed,  of 
any  gentle  mercy  good  intentions  will,  one  is 
fain  to  fancy,  have  their  recognition  ;  but  of 
those  that  would  enter  the  serene  House  of 
Beauty  the  question  that  we  ask  is  not  what 


L'ENVOI  7 

they  had  ever  meant  to  do,  but  what  they 
have  done.  Their  pathetic  intentions  are  of 
no  value  to  us,  but  their  realised  creations 
only.  Pour  mot  je  prtfere  les  poetes  qui  font 
des  vers,  les  mkdecins  qui  sachent  guerir,  les 
peintres  qui  sachent  peindre. 

Nor,  in  looking  at  a  work  of  art,  should  we 
be  dreaming  of  what  it  symbolises,  but  rather 
loving  it  for  what  it  is.  Indeed,  the  transcen- 
dental spirit  is  alien  to  the  spirit  of  art.  The 
metaphysical  mind  of  Asia  may  create  for 
itself  the  monstrous  and  many-breasted  idol, 
but  to  the  Greek,  pure  artist,  that  work  is 
most  instinct  with  spiritual  life  which  con- 
forms most  closely  to  the  perfect  facts  of 
physical  life  also.  Nor,  in  its  primary  aspect, 
has  a  painting,  for  instance,  any  more  spiritual 
message  or  meaning  for  us  than  a  blue  tile 
from  the  wall  of  Damascus,  or  a  Hitzen  vase. 
It  is  a  beautifully-coloured  surface,  nothing 
more,  and  affects  us  by  no  suggestion  stolen 
from  philosophy,  no  pathos  pilfered  from 
literature,  no  feeling  filched  from  a  poet,  but 


8  L'ENVOI 

by  its  own  incommunicable  artistic  essence  — 
by  that  selection  of  truth  which  we  call  style, 
and  that  relation  of  values  which  is  the 
draughtsmanship  of  painting,  by  the  whole 
quality  of  the  workmanship,  the  arabesque  of 
the  design,  the  splendour  of  the  colour,  for 
these  things  are  enough  to  stir  the  most  divine 
and  remote  of  the  chords  which  make  music 
in  our  soul,  and  colour,  indeed,  is  of  itself  a 
.mystical  presence  on  things,  and  tone  a  kind 
of  sentiment. 

This,  then  —  the  new  departure  of  our 
younger  school  —  is  the  chief  characteristic  of 
Mr.  Rennell  Rodd's  poetry ;  for,  while  there 
is  much  in  his  work  that  may  interest  the 
intellect,  much  that  will  excite  the  emotions, 
and  many  cadenced  chords  of  sweet  and 
simple  sentiment  —  for  to  those  who  love  Art 
for  its  own  sake  all  other  things  are  added  — 
yet  the  effect  which  they  preeminently  seek  to 
produce  is  purely  an  artistic  one.  Such  a 
poem  as  "  The  Sea-King's  Grave,"  with  all  its 
majesty  of  melody  as  sonorous  and  as  strong 


L'ENVOI  9 

as  the  sea  by  whose  pine-fringed  shores  it  was 
thus  nobly  conceived  and  nobly  fashioned  ;  or 
the  little  poem  that  follows  it,  whose  cunning 
workmanship,  wrought  with  such  an  artistic 
sense  of  limitation,  one  might  liken  to  the  rare 
chasing  of  the  mirror  that  is  its  motive  ;  or 
"  In  a  Church,"  pale  flower  of  one  of  those 
exquisite  moments  when  all  things  except  the 
moment  itself  seem  so  curiously  real,  and 
when  the  old  memories  of  forgotten  days  are 
touched  and  made  tender,  and  the  familiar 
place  grows  fervent  and  solemn  suddenly  with 
a  vision  of  the  undying  beauty  of  the  gods  that 
died ;  or  the  scene  in  M  Chartres  Cathedral," 
sombre  silence  brooding  on  vault  and  arch, 
silent  people  kneeling  on  the  dust  of  the 
desolate  pavement  as  the  young  priest  lifts 
Lord  Christ's  body  in  a  crystal  star,  and  then 
the  sudden  beams  of  scarlet  light  that  break 
through  the  blazoned  window  and  smite  on  the 
carven  screen,  and  sudden  organ  peals  of 
mighty  music  rolling  and  echoing  from  choir 
to  canopy,  and  from  spire  to  shaft,  and  over 


io  L'ENVOI 

all  the  clear  glad  voice  of  a  singing  boy, 
affecting  one  as  a  thing  oversweet,  and  strik- 
ing just  the  right  artistic  keynote  for  one's 
emotions ;  or  "  At  Lanuvium,"  through  the 
music  of  whose  lines  one  seems  to  hear  again 
the  murmur  of  the  Mantuan  bees  straying 
down  from  their  own  green  valleys  and  inland 
streams  to  find  what  honeyed  amber  the  sea- 
flowers  might  be  hiding ;  or  the  poem  written 
"  In  the  Coliseum,"  which  gives  one  the  same 
artistic  joy  that  one  gets  watching  a  handi- 
craftsman at  his  work,  a  goldsmith  hammering 
out  his  gold  into  those  thin  plates  as  delicate 
as  the  petals  of  a  yellow  rose,  or  drawing  it 
out  into  the  long  wires  like  tangled  sunbeams, 
so  perfect  and  precious  is  the  mere  handling 
of  it ;  or  the  little  lyric  interludes  that  break 
in  here  and  there  like  the  singing  of  a  thrush, 
and  are  as  swift  and  as  sure  as  the  beating  of 
a  bird's  wing,  as  light  and  bright  as  the  apple- 
blossoms  that  flutter  fitfully  down  to  the 
orchard  grass  after  a  spring  shower,  and  look 
the  lovelier  for  the  rain's  tears  lying  on  their 


L'ENVOI  ii 

dainty  veinings  of  pink  and  pearl ;  or  the 
sonnets  —  for  Mr.  Rodd  is  one  of  those  qui 
sonnent  le  sonnet^  as  the  Ronsardists  used  to 
say  —  that  one  called  "On  the  Border  Hills," 
with  its  fiery  wonder  of  imagination  and  the 
strange  beauty  of  its  eighth  line ;  or  the  one 
which  tells  of  the  sorrow  of  the  great  king  for 
the  little  dead  child,  —  well,  all  these  poems 
aim,  as  I  said,  at  producing  a  purely  artistic 
effect,  and  have  the  rare  and  exquisite  quality 
that  belongs  to  work  of  that  kind ;  and  I  feel 
that  the  entire  subordination  in  our  aesthetic 
movement  of  all  merely  emotional  and  intel- 
lectual motives  to  the  vital  informing  poetic 
principle  is  the  surest  sign  of  our  strength. 

But  it  is  not  enough  that  a  work  of  art 
should  conform  to  the  aesthetic  demands  of 
the  age  :  there  should  be  also  about  it,  if  it  is 
to  give  us  any  permanent  delight,  the  impress 
of  a  distinct  individuality.  Whatever  work 
we  have  in  the  nineteenth  century  must  rest 
on  the  two  poles  of  personality  and  perfection. 
And  so  in  this  little  volume,  by  separating  the 


12  L'ENVOI 

earlier  and  more  simple  work  from  the  work 
that  is  later  and  stronger  and  possesses 
increased  technical  power  and  more  artistic 
vision,  one  might  weave  these  disconnected 
poems,  these  stray  and  scattered  threads,  into 
one  fiery-coloured  strand  of  life,  noting  first  a 
boy's  mere  gladness  of  being  young,  with  all 
its  simple  joy  in  field  and  flower,  in  sunlight 
and  in  song,  and  then  the  bitterness  of  sudden 
sorrow  at  the  ending  by  Death  of  one  of  the 
brief  and  beautiful  friendships  of  one's  youth, 
with  all  those  unanswered  longings  and  ques- 
tionings unsatisfied  by  which  we  vex,  so  use- 
lessly, the  marble  face  of  death ;  the  artistic 
contrast  between  the  discontented  incomplete- 
ness of  the  spirit  and  the  complete  perfection 
of  the  style  that  expresses  it  forming  the  chief 
element  of  the  aesthetic  charm  of  these  par- 
ticular poems  ;  —  and  then  the  birth  of  Love, 
and  all  the  wonder  and  the  fear  and  the  peril- 
ous delight  of  one  on  whose  boyish  brows  the 
little  wings  of  love  have  beaten  for  the  first 
time ;    and    the    love-songs,    so    dainty    and 


L'ENVOI  13 

delicate,  little  swallow-flights  of  music,  and 
full  of  such  fragrance  and  freedom  that  they 
might  all  be  sung  in  the  open  air  and  across 
moving  water ;  and  then  autumn,  coming  with 
its  quireless  woods  and  odorous  decay  and 
ruined  loveliness,  Love  lying  dead ;  and  the 
sense  of  the  mere  pity  of  it. 

One  might  stop  there,  for  from  a  young 
poet  one  should  ask  for  no  deeper  chords  of 
life  than  those  that  love  and  friendship  make 
eternal  for  us ;  and  the  best  poems  in  this 
volume  belong  clearly  to  a  later  time,  a  time 
when  these  real  experiences  become  absorbed 
and  gathered  up  into  a  form  which  seems  from 
such  real  experiences  to  be  the  most  alien  and 
the  most  remote ;  when  the  simple  expression 
of  joy  or  sorrow  suffices  no  longer,  and  lives 
rather  in  the  stateliness  of  the  cadenced  metre, 
in  the  music  and  colour  of  the  linked  words, 
than  in  any  direct  utterance ;  lives,  one  might 
say,  in  the  perfection  of  the  form  more  than 
in  the  pathos  of  the  feeling.  And  yet,  after 
the  broken   music  of  love  and    the  burial  of 


14  L'ENVOI 

love  in  the  autumn  woods,  we  can  trace  that 
wandering  among  strange  people,  and  in  lands 
unknown  to  us,  by  which  we  try  so  pathetic- 
ally to  heal  the  hurts  of  the  life  we  know,  and 
that  pure  and  passionate  devotion  to  Art 
which  one  gets  when  the  harsh  reality  of  life 
has  too  suddenly  wounded  one,  and  is  with 
discontent  or  sorrow  marring  one's  youth,  just 
as  often,  I  think,  as  one  gets  it  from  any 
natural  joy  of  living ;  and  that  curious  inten- 
sity of  vision  by  which,  in  moments  of  over- 
mastering sadness  and  despair  ungovernable, 
artistic  things  will  live  in  one's  memory  with 
a  vivid  realism  caught  from  the  life  which 
they  help  one  to  forget  —  an  old  gray  tomb  in 
Flanders  with  a  strange  legend  on  it,  making 
one  think  how,  perhaps,  passion  does  live  on 
after  death,  a  necklace  of  blue  and  amber 
beads  and  a  broken  mirror  found  in  a  girl's 
grave  at  Rome,  a  marble  image  of  a  boy 
habited  like  Eros,  and  with  the  pathetic  tra- 
dition of  a  great  king's  sorrow  lingering  about 
it  like  a  purple  shadow,  —  over  all  these  the 


L'ENVOI  15 

tired  spirit  broods  with  that  calm  and  certain 
joy  that  one  gets  when  one  has  found  some- 
thing that  the  ages  never  dull  and  the  world 
cannot  harm ;  and  with  it  comes  that  desire 
of  Greek  things  which  is  often  an  artistic 
method  of  expressing  one's  desire  for  perfec- 
tion ;  and  that  longing  for  the  old  dead  days 
which  is  so  modern,  so  incomplete,  so  touch- 
ing, being,  in  a  way,  the  inverted  torch  of 
Hope,  which  burns  the  hand  it  should  guide  ; 
and  for  many  things  a  little  sadness,  and  for 
all  things  a  great  love ;  and  lastly,  in  the  pine- 
wood  by  the  sea,  once  more  the  quick  and 
vital  pulse  of  joyous  youth  leaping  and  laugh- 
ing in  every  line,  the  frank  and  fearless 
freedom  of  wave  and  wind  waking  into  fire 
life's  burnt-out  ashes  and  into  song  the  silent 
lips  of  pain,  —  how  clearly  one  seems  to  see  it 
all,  the  long  colonnade  of  pines  with  sea  and 
sky  peeping  in  here  and  there  like  a  flitting  of 
silver  ;  the  open  place  in  the  green  deep  heart 
of  the  wood  with  the  little  moss-grown  altar  to 
the  old  Italian  god  in  it ;  and  the  flowers  all 


16  L'ENVOI 

about,  cyclamen  in  the  shadowy  places,  and 
the  stars  of  the  white  narcissus  lying  like 
snowflakes  over  the  grass,  where  the  quick, 
bright-eyed  lizard  starts  by  the  stone,  and  the 
snake  lies  coiled  lazily  in  the  sun  on  the  hot 
sand,  and  overhead  the  gossamer  floats  from 
the  branches  like  thin  tremulous  threads  of 
gold,  —  the  scene  is  so  perfect  for  its  motive, 
for  surely  here,  if  anywhere,  the  real  gladness 
of  life  might  be  revealed  to  one's  youth  —  the 
gladness  that  comes,  not  from  the  rejection, 
but  from  the  absorption,  of  all  passion,  and  is 
like  that  serene  calm  that  dwells  in  the  faces 
of  the  Greek  statues,  and  which  despair  and 
sorrow  cannot  disturb,  but  intensify  only. 

In  some  such  way  as  this  we  could  gather 
up  these  strewn  and  scattered  petals  of  song 
into  one  perfect  rose  of  life,  and  yet,  perhaps, 
in  so  doing,  we  might  be  missing  the  true 
quality  of  the  poems;  one's  real  life  is  so 
often  the  life  that  one  does  not  lead ;  and 
beautiful  poems,  like  threads  of  beautiful 
silks,  may  be  woven  into  many  patterns  and 


L'ENVOI  17 

to  suit  many  designs,  all  wonderful  and  all 
different :  and  romantic  poetry,  too,  is  essen- 
tially the  poetry  of  impressions,  being  like 
that  latest  school  of  painting,  the  school  of 
Whistler  and  Albert  Moore,  in  its  choice  of 
situation  as  opposed  to  subject ;  in  its  dealing 
with  the  exceptions  rather  than  with  the  types 
of  life;  in  its  brief  intensity;  in  what  one 
might  call  its  fiery-coloured  momentariness,  it 
being  indeed  the  momentary  situations  of  life, 
the  momentary  aspects  of  nature,  which  poetry 
and  painting  now  seek  to  render  for  us. 
Sincerity  and  constancy  will  the  artist, 
indeed,  have  always ;  but  sincerity  in  art  is 
merely  that  plastic  perfection  of  execution 
without  which  a  poem  or  a  painting,  however 
noble  its  sentiment  or  human  its  origin,  is  but 
wasted  and  unreal  work,  and  the  constancy  of 
the  artist  cannot  be  to  any  definite  rule  or 
system  of  living,  but  to  that  principle  of  beauty 
only  through  which  the  inconstant  shadows  of 
his  life  are  in  their  most  fleeting  moment 
arrested  and  made  permanent.     He  will  not, 


18  L'ENVOI 

for  instance,  in  intellectual  matters,  acquiesce 
in  that  facile  orthodoxy  of  our  day  which  is  so 
reasonable  and  so  artistically  uninteresting, 
nor  yet  will  he  desire  that  fiery  faith  of  the 
antique  time  which,  while  it  intensified,  yet 
limited,  the  vision,  still  less  will  he  allow  the 
calm  of  his  culture  to  be  marred  by  the 
discordant  despair  of  doubt  or  the  sadness  of 
a  sterile  skepticism  ;  for  the  Valley  Perilous, 
where  ignorant  armies  clash  by  night,  is  no 
resting-place  meet  for  her  to  whom  the  gods 
have  assigned  the  clear  upland,  the  serene 
height,  and  the  sunlit  air, — rather  will  he  be 
always  curiously  testing  new  forms  of  belief, 
tinging  his  nature  with  the  sentiment  that  still 
lingers  about  some  beautiful  creeds,  and  search- 
ing for  experience  itself,  and  not  for  the  fruits 
of  experience,  when  he  has  got  its  secret,  he 
will  leave  without  regret  much  that  was  once 
very  precious  to  him.  "  I  am  always  insin- 
cere," says  Emerson  somewhere,  "  as  knowing 
that  there  are  other  moods :  "  u  Les  emotions," 
wrote  Theophile  Gautier  once  in  a  review  of 


L'ENVOI  19 

Arsene  Houssaye,  "  Les  Amotions  ne  se  ressem- 
blent  pas,  mais  etre  ktnu —  voila  V  important P 
Now,  this  is  the  secret  of  the  art  of  the 
modern  romantic  school,  and  gives  one  the 
right  keynote  for  its  apprehension  ;  but  the  real 
quality  of  all  work  which,  like  Mr.  Rodd's, 
aims,  as  I  said,  at  a  purely  artistic  effect, 
cannot  be  described  in  terms  of  intellectual 
criticism  ;  it  is  too  intangible  for  that.  One 
can  perhaps  convey  it  best  in  terms  of  the 
other  arts,  and  by  reference  to  them  ;  and, 
indeed,  some  of  these  poems  are  as  iridescent 
and  as  exquisite  as  a  lovely  fragment  of 
Venetian  glass ;  others  as  delicate  in  perfect 
workmanship  and  as  simple  in  natural  motive 
as  an  etching  by  Whistler  is,  or  one  of  those 
beautiful  little  Greek  figures  which  in  the 
olive  woods  round  Tanagra  men  can  still  find, 
with  the  faint  gilding  and  the  fading  crimson 
not  yet  fled  from  hair  and  lips  and  raiment ; 
and  many  of  them  seem  like  one  ©f  Corot's 
twilights  just  passing  into  music,  for  not  merely 
in    visible    colour,   but   in   sentiment    also  — 


20  L '  E  N  V  O  I 

which  is  the  colour  of  poetry  —  may  there  be 
a  kind  of  tone. 

But  I  think  that  the  best  likeness  to  the 
quality  of  this  young  poet's  work  I  ever  saw 
was  in  the  landscape  by  the  Loire.  We  were 
staying  once,  he  and  I,  at  Amboise,  that  little 
village  with  its  gray-slate  roofs  and  steep 
streets  and  gaunt  grim  gateway,  where  the 
quiet  cottages  nestle  like  white  pigeons  into 
the  sombre  clefts  of  the  great  bastioned  rock, 
and  the  stately  Renaissance  houses  stand  silent 
and  apart — very  desolate  now,  but  with  some 
memory  of  the  old  days  still  lingering  about 
the  delicately-twisted  pillars,  and  the  carved 
doorways,  with  their  grotesque  animals,  and 
laughing  masks,  and  quaint  heraldic  devices, 
all  reminding  one  of  a  people  who  could  not 
think  life  real  till  they  had  made  it  fantastic. 
And  above  the  village,  and  beyond  the  bend 
of  the  river,  we  used  to  go  in  the  afternoon, 
and  sketch  from  one  of  the  big  barges  that 
bring  the  wine  in  autumn  and  the  wood  in 
winter  down   to  the  sea,   or   lie   in   the   long 


L'ENVOI  21 

grass  and  make  plans  pour  la  gloire^  et  pour 
ennuyer  les  philistins,  or  wander  along  the  low 
sedgy  banks,  "  matching  our  reeds  in  sportive 
rivalry,"  as  comrades  used  in  the  old  Sicilian 
days ;  and  the  land  was  an  ordinary  land 
enough,  and  bare  too  when  one  thought  of 
Italy,  and  how  the  oleanders  were  robing  the 
hillsides  by  Genoa  in  scarlet,  and  the  cyclamen 
filling  with  its  purple  every  valley  from  Florence 
to  Rome;  for  there  was  not  much  real  beauty, 
perhaps,  in  it,  only  long  white  dusty  roads, 
and  straight  rows  of  formal  poplars;  but  now 
and  then  some  little  breaking  gleam  of  broken 
light  would  lend  to  the  gray  field  and  the 
silent  barn  a  secret  and  a  mystery  that  were 
hardly  their  own,  would  transfigure  for  one 
exquisite  moment  the  peasants  passing  down 
through  the  vineyard,  or  the  shepherd  watching 
on  the  hill,  would  tip  the  willows  with  silver, 
and  touch  the  river  into  gold  ;  and  the  wonder 
of  the  effect,  with  the  strange  simplicity  of  the 
material,  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  a  little  like 
the  quality  of  these  the  verses  of  my  friend. 

OSCAR    WILDE. 


ROSE  LEAF  AND  APPLE  LEAF 


FROM  THE  HILL  OF  GARDENS 

THE  outline  of  a  shadowy  city  spread 
Between  the  garden  and  the  distant  hill  — 
And  o'er  yon  dome  the  flame-ring  lingers  still, 
Set  like  the  glory  on  an  angel's  head  : 
The  light  fades  quivering  into  evening  blue 
Behind  the  pine-tops  on  Ianiculum  ; 
The  swallow  whispered  to  the  swallow  "  come  !  " 
And  took  the  sunset  on  her  wings,  and  flew. 

One  rift  of  cloud  the  wind  caught  up  suspending 
A  ruby  path  between  the  earth  and  sky ; 
Those  shreds  of  gold  are  angel  wings  ascending 
From  where  the  sorrows  of  our  singers  lie  ; 
They  have  not  found  those  wandering  spirits  yet, 
But  seek  for  ever  in  the  red  sunset. 

Pass  upward  angel  wings  !    Seek  not  for  these, 
They  sit  not  in  the  cypress-planted  graves ; 
Their  spirits  wander  over  moonlit  waves, 
And  sing  in  all  the  singing  of  the  seas  ; 

25 


26  FROM    THE    HILL    OF    GARDENS 

And  by  green  places  in  the  spring-tide  showers, 
And  in  the  re-awakening  of  flowers. 

Some  pearl-lipped  shell  still  dewy  with  sea  foam 
Bear  back  to  whisper  where  their  feet  have  trod ; 
They  are  the  earth's  for  evermore  ;  fly  home  ! 
And  lay  a  daisy  at  the  feet  of  God. 


IN    THE    COLISEUM 


NIGHT  wanes  ;  I  sit  in  the  ruin  alone ; 
Beneath,  the  shadow  of  arches  falls 
From  the  dim  outline  of  the  broken  walls  ; 
And  the  half-light  steals  o'er  the  age-worn  stone 
From  a  midway  arch  where  the  moon  looks 
through, 
A  silver  shield  in  the  deep,  deep  blue. 

This  is  the  hour  of  ghosts  that  rise ; 
—  Line  on  line  of  the  noiseless  dead  — 
The  clouds  above  are  their  awning  spread ; 
Look  into  the  shadow  with  moon-dazed  eyes, 
You  will  see  the  writhing  of  limbs  in  pain, 
And  the  whole  red  tragedy  over  again. 

The  ghostly  galleys  ride  out  and  meet, 
The  Caesar  sits  in  his  golden  chair, 
His  fingers  toy  with  his  women's  hair, 
The  water  is  blood-red  under  his  feet,  — 
Till  the  owl's  long  cry  dies  down  with  the  night, 

And  one  star  waits  for  the  dawning  light. 
Rome,  1881. 

27 


THE    SEA-KING'S    GRAVE 


HIGH  over  the   wild  sea-border,  on  the 
furthest  downs  to  the  west, 
Is  the  green  grave-mound  of  the  Norseman, 

with  the  yew-tree  grove  on  its  crest. 
And  I  heard  in  the  winds  his  story,  as  they 

leapt  up  salt  from  the  wave, 
And  tore  at  the  creaking  branches  that  grow 

from  the  sea-king's  grave. 
Some  son  of  the  old-world  Vikings,  the  wild 

sea-wandering  lords, 
Who  sailed  in  a  snake-prowed  galley,  with  a 

terror  of  twenty  swords. 
From  the  fiords  of  the   sunless  winter,  they 

came  on  an  icy  blast, 
Till    over  the   whole   world's    sea-board   the 

shadow  of  Odin  passed, 
Till  they  sped  to  the  inland  waters  and  under 

the  South-land  skies, 

And  stared  on  the  puny  princes,  with  their 

blue  victorious  eyes. 

28 


THE    SEA-KING'S    GRAVE  29 

And  they  said  he  was  old  and  royal,  and  a 

warrior  all  his  days, 
But  the  king  who  had  slain  his  brother  lived 

yet  in  the  island  ways. 
And   he   came  from   a   hundred   battles,   and 

died  in  his  last  wild  quest, 
For  he  said,  "  I  will  have  my  vengeance,  and 

then  I  will  take  my  rest." 
He  had  passed  on  his  homeward  journey,  and 

the  king  of  the  isles  was  dead; 
He  had  drunken  the  draught  of  triumph,  and 

his  cup  was  the  isle-king's  head  ; 
And  he  spoke  of  the  song  and  feasting,  and 

the  gladness  of  things  to  be, 
And  three  days  over  the  waters  they  rowed  on 

a  waveless  sea. 
Till  a  small  cloud  rose  to  the  shoreward,  and 

a  gust  broke  out  of  the  cloud, 
And  the  spray  beat  over  the  rowers,  and  the 

murmur  of  winds  was  loud, 
With  the  voice  of  the  far-off  thunders,  till  the 

shuddering  air  grew  warm, 
And  the  day  was  as  dark  as  at  even,  and  the 

wild  god  rode  on  the  storm. 


30  THE    SEA-KING'S    GRAVE 

But  the  old  man  laughed  in  the  thunder  as  he 

set  his  casque  on  his  brow, 
And  he  waved  his  sword  in  the  lightnings  and 

clung  to  the  painted  prow. 
And   the    shaft    of    the    storm-god's    quiver, 

flashed  out  from  the  flame-flushed  skies, 
Rang   down    on   his    war-worn    harness,   and 

gleamed  in  his  fiery  eyes. 
And  his  mail  and  his  crested  helmet,  and  his 

hair,  and  his  beard  burned  red ; 
And   they  said,  "It  is  Odin   calls;"  and  he 

fell,  and  they  found  him  dead. 
So  here,  in  his  war-guise  armoured,  they  laid 

him  down  to  his  rest, 
In  his  casque  with  the  rein-deer  antlers,  and 

the  long  grey  beard  on  his  breast : 
His  bier  was  the  spoil  of  the  islands,  with  a 

sail  for  a  shroud  beneath, 
And  an  oar  of  his  blood-red  galley,  and  his 

battle  brand  in  the  sheath; 
And    they  buried    his   bow  beside  him,  and 

planted  the  grove  of  yew, 
For  the  grave  of  a  mighty  archer,  one  tree  for 

each  of  his  crew  ; 


THE    SEA-KING'S    GRAVE  31 

Where  the  flowerless  cliffs  are  sheerest,  where 

the  sea-birds  circle  and  swarm, 
And  the  rocks  are  at  war  with   the   waters, 

with  their  jagged  grey  teeth  in  the  storm  ; 
And  the  huge  Atlantic  billows  sweep  in,  and 

the  mists  enclose 
The  hill  with  the  grass-grown  mound  where 

the  Norseman's  yew-tree  grows. 


A    ROMAN  MIRROR 


^  1  "HEY  found  it  in  her  hollow  marble  bed, 
«■*       There  where  the  numberless  dead  cities  sleep, 
They  found  it  lying  where  the  spade  struck  deep, 

A  broken  mirror  by  a  maiden  dead. 

These  things  —  the  beads  she  wore  about  her  throat 
Alternate  blue  and  amber  all  untied, 
A  lamp  to  light  her  way,  and  on  one  side 

The  toll  men  pay  to  that  strange  ferry-boat. 

No  trace  to-day  of  what  in  her  was  fair ! 
Only  the  record  of  long  years  grown  green 
Upon  the  mirror's  lustreless  dead  sheen, 

Grown  dim  at  last,  when  all  else  withered  there. 

Dead,  broken,  lustreless !     It  keeps  for  me 
One  picture  of  that  immemorial  land, 
For  oft  as  I  have  held  thee  in  my  hand 

The  dull  bronze  brightens,  and  I  dream  to  see 

32 


A    ROMAN    MIRROR  33 

A  fair  face  gazing  in  thee  wondering  wise, 
And  o'er  one  marble  shoulder  all  the  while 
Strange  lips  that  whisper  till  her  own  lips  smile, 

And  all  the  mirror  laughs  about  her  eyes. 

It  was  well  thought  to  set  thee  there,  so  she 
Might  smooth  the  windy  ripples  of  her  hair 
And  knot  their  tangled  waywardness,  or  ere 

She  stood  before  the  queen  Persephone. 

And  still  it  may  be  where  the  dead  folk  rest 
She  holds  a  shadowy  mirror  to  her  eyes, 
And  looks  upon  the  changelessness,  and  sighs 

And  sets  the  dead  land  lilies  in  her  breast. 

1879. 


BY    THE    SOUTH    SEA 


SO  here  we  have  sat  by  the  sea  so  late, 
And  you  with  your  dreaming  eyes 
Have  argued  well  what  I  know  you  hate, 
Till  even  my  own  dream  dies. 

Yet  why  will  you  smile  at  my  old  white  years 

When  love  was  a  gift  divine, 
When  songs  were  laughter  and  hope  and  tears, 

And  art  was  a  people's  shrine  ? 

Must  I  change  the  burdens  I  loved  to  sing, 

The  words  of  my  worn-out  song  ? 
The  old  fair  thoughts  have  a  hollow  ring, 

My  faiths  have  been  dead  so  long. 

And  yet,  —  to  have  known  that  one  did  not  know 
To  have  dreamed  with  the  poet  priest ! 

To  have  hope  to  feel  that  it  might  be  so ! 
And  theirs  was  a  faith  at  least. 

34 


BY    THE    SOUTH    SEA  35 

When  the  priest  was  poet,  and  hearts  were  fain 

Of  marvellous  things  to  dream, 
To  see  God's  tears  in  a  cloud  of  rain, 

And  his  hair  on  a  gold  sunbeam ; 

To  know  that  the  sons  of  the  old  Sea  King 
Roamed  under  their  waves  at  will, 

To  have  heard  a  song  that  the  wood  gods  sing 
On  the  other  side  of  the  hill ! 

And  so  I  had  held  it,  —  for  all  things  blend 
In  the  world's  great  harmony , — 

That  they  served  an  end  to  an  after-end, 
And  were  of  the  things  that  be. 

But  now  ye  are  bidding  your  God  god-speed 
With  his  lore  upon  dusty  shelves ; 

So  wise  ye  are  grown,  ye  have  found  no  need 
For  any  god  but  yourselves. 

Ye  have  learnt  the  riddle  of  seas  and  sand, 
Of  leaves  in  the  spring  uncurled ; 

There  is  no  room  left  for  my  wonderland 
In  the  whole  of  the  great  wide  world. 


36  BY    THE    SOUTH    SEA 

And  what  have  ye  left  for  a  song  to  say  ? 

What  now  is  a  singer's  fame  ? 
He  may  startle  the  ear  with  a  word  one  day, 

And  die, —  and  live  in  a  name. 

But  the  world  has  heed  unto  no  fair  thing, 
Men  pass  on  their  soulless  ways, 

They  give  no  faith  unto  those  who  sing, 
—  Give  hardly  a  heartless  praise. 

But  you  say,  Let  us  go  unto  all  wide  lands, 
Let  us  speak  to  the  people's  heart ! 

Let  us  make  good  use  of  our  lips  and  hands, 
There  is  hope  for  the  world  in  art ! 

Will  the  dull  ears  hear,  will  the  dead  souls  see  ? 

Will  they  know  what  we  hardly  know  ? 
The  chords  of  the  wonderful  harmony 

Of  the  earth  and  the  skies  ?  — if  so  — 

We  have  talked  too  long  till  it  all  seems  vain, — 
The  desire  and  the  hopes  that  fired, 

The  triumphs  won  and  the  meedless  pain, 
And  the  heart  that  has  hoped  is  tired. 


BY    THE    SOUTH    SEA  37 

Do  you  see  down  there  where  the  high  cliffs  shrink, 

And  the  ripples  break  on  the  bay, 
Our  old  sea  boat  at  the  white  foam  brink 

With  the  sail  slackened  down  half-way  ? 

Shall  we  get  hence  ?     O  fair  heart's  brother  ! 

You  are  weary  at  heart  with  me, 
We  two  alone  in  the  world,  no  other : 

Shall  we  go  to  our  wide  kind  sea  ? 

Shall  we  glide  away  in  this  white  moon's  track  ? 

Does  it  not  seem  fair  in  your  eyes ! 
— To  drift  and  drift  with  our  white  sail  black 

In  the  dreamful  light  of  the  skies, 

Till  the  pale  stars  die,  and  some  far  fair  shore 

Comes  up  through  the  morning  haze, 
And  wandering  hearts  shall  not  wander  more 

Far  off  from  the  mad  world's  ways. 

Or  still  more  fair  —  when  the  dim  scared  night 
Grows  pale  from  the  east  to  the  west  — 

If  the  waters  gather  us  home,  and  the  light 
Break  through  on  the  waves'  unrest, 


38  BY    THE    SOUTH    SEA 

And  there  in  the  gleam  of  the  gold-washed  sea, 
Which  the  smile  of  the  morning  brings, 

Our  souls  shall  fathom  the  mystery, 
And  the  riddle  of  all  these  things. 

1879. 


IN    A    CHURCH 


THIS  was  the  first  shrine  lit  for  Queen  Marie  ; 
And  I  will  sit  a  little  at  her  feet, 
For  winds  without  howl  down  the  narrow  street 
And  storm-clouds  gather  from  the  westward  sea. 

Sweet  here  to  watch  the  peasant  people  pray, 

While  through  the  crimson-shrouded  window  falls 
Low  light  of  even,  and  the  golden  walls 

Grow  dim  and  dreamful  at  the  end  of  day, 

Till  from  these  columns  fades  their  marble  sheen, 
And  lines  grow  soft  and  mystical, —  these  wraiths 
That  watch  the  service  of  the  changing  faiths, 

To  Mary  mother  from  the  Cyprian  queen. 

But  aye  for  me  this  old-word  colonnade 

Seems  open  to  blue  summer  skies  once  more, 
These  altars  pass,  and  on  the  polished  floor 

I  see  the  lines  of  chequered  light  and  shade ; 

39 


40  INACHURCH 

I  seem  to  see  the  dark-browed  Lybian  lean 
To  cool  the  tortured  burning  of  the  lash, 
I  see  the  fountains  as  they  leap  and  flash, 

The  rustling  sway  of  cypress  set  between. 

And  now  yon  friar  with  the  bare  feet  there, 
Is  grown  the  haunting  spirit  of  the  place ; 
Ah !  brown-robed  friar  with  the  shaven  face, 

The  saints  are  weary  of  thy  mumbled  prayer. 

From  matins'  bell  to  the  slow  day's  decline 
He  sits  and  thumbs  his  endless  round  of  beads, 
Drawls  out  the  dreary  cadence  of  his  creeds 

And  nods  assent  to  each  familiar  line. 

But  she  the  goddess  whose  white  star  is  set, 
Whose  fane  was  pillaged  for  this  sombre  shrine, 
Could  she  look  down  upon  those  lips  of  thine, 

And  hear  thee  mutter,  would  she  still  regret  ? 

There  came  a  sound  of  singing  on  my  ear, 
And  slowly  glided  through  the  far-off  door 
A  glimmer  of  grey  forms  like  ghosts,  they  bore 

A  dead  man  lying  on  his  purple  bier. 


IN    A    CHURCH  41 

Some  poor  man's  soul,  so  little  candle  smoke 
Went  curling  upwards  by  the  uncased  shroud, 
And  then  a  sudden  thunder-clap  broke  loud, 

And  drowned  the  droning  of  the  priest  who  spoke. 

So  all  the  shuffling  feet  passed  out  again 

To  lightnings  flashing  through  the  wet  and  wind, 
And  while  I  lingered  in  the  gate  behind 

The  dead  man  travelled  through  the  storm  and  rain. 

Rome,  1881. 


AT    LANUVIUM 


"  Fes  to  quid  p  otitis  die 
Neptuni  faciam." 

Horace,  Odes,  iii.  28. 

SPRING  grew  to  perfect  summer  in  one  day, 
And  we  lay  there  among  the  vines,  to  gaze 
Where  Circe's  isle  floats  purple,  far  away 
Above  the  golden  haze  : 

And  on  our  ears  there  seemed  to  rise  and  fall 
The  burden  of  an  old  world  song  we  knew, 
That  sang,  "  To-day  is  Neptune's  festival, 
And  we,  what  shall  we  do  ? " 

Go  down  brown-armed  Campagna  maid  of  mine, 

And  bring  again  the  earthen  jar  that  lies 

With  three  years'  dust  above  the  mellow  wine ; 

And  while  the  swift  day  dies, 

42 


AT    LANUVIUM  43 

You  first  shall  sing  a  song  of  waters  blue, 
Paphos  and  Cnidos  in  the  summer  seas, 
And  one  who  guides  her  swan-drawn  chariot  through 
The  white-shored  Cyclades ; 

And  I  will  take  the  second  turn  of  song, 

Of  floating  tresses  in  the  foam  and  surge 
Where  Nereid  maids  about  the  sea-god  throng ; 
And  night  shall  have  her  dirge. 

1881. 


"if  any  one  return ,: 


I   WOULD  we  had  carried  him  far  away 
To  the  light  of  this  south  sun  land, 
Where  the  hills  lean  down  to  some  red-rocked  bay 
And  the  sea's  blue  breaks  into  snow-white  spray 
As  the  wave  dies  out  on  the  sand. 

Not  there,  not  there,  where  the  winds  deface  ! 

Where  the  storm  and  the  cloud  race  by ! 
But  far  away  in  this  flowerful  place 
Where  endless  summers  retouch,  retrace, 

What  flowers  find  heart  to  die. 

And  if  ever  the  souls  of  the  loved,  set  free, 

Come  back  to  the  souls  that  stay, 
I  could  dream  he  would  sit  for  a  while  with  me 
Where  I  sit  by  this  wonderful  tideless  sea 

And  look  to  the  red-rocked  bay, 

By  the  high  cliff's  edge  where  the  wild  weeds  twine, 
And  he  would  not  speak  or  move, 

44 


"IF    ANY    ONE    RETURN"  45 

But  his  eyes  would  gaze  from  his  soul  at  mine, 
My  eyes  that  would  answer  without  one  sign, 
And  that  were  enough  for  love. 

And  I  think  I  should  feel  as  the  sun  went  round 

That  he  was  not  there  any  more, 
But  dews  were  wet  on  the  grass-grown  mound 
On  the  bed  of  my  love  lying  underground, 

And  evening  pale  on  the  shore. 

1879. 


SONNETS 


/ 


"UNE  HEURE  VIENDRA  QUI  TOUT  PAIERA" 


IT  was  a  tomb  in  Flanders,  old  and  grey, 
A  knight  in  armour,  lying  dead,  unknown 
Among  the  long-forgotten,  yet  the  stone 
Cried  out  for  vengeance  where  the  dead  man  lay  ; 

No  name  was  chiselled  at  his  side  to  say 
What  wrongs  his  spirit  thirsted  to  atone, 
Only  the  armour  with  green  moss  o'ergrown, 

And  those  grim  words  no  years  had  worn  away. 

It  may  be  haply  in  the  songs  of  old 

His  deeds  were  wonders  to  sweet  music  set, 
His  name  the  thunder  of  a  battle  call, 
Among  the  things  forgotten  and  untold ; 

His  only  record  is  the  dead  man's  threat,  — 
"  An  hour  will  come  that  shall  atone  for  all !  " 

1879. 


49 


ACTEA 


T  T  7HEN  the  last  bitterness  was  past,  she  bore 
*  *        Her  singing  Caesar  to  the  Garden  Hill, 

Her  fallen  pitiful  dead  emperor. 

She  lifted  up  the  beggar's  cloak  he  wore 

—  The  one  thing  living  he  would  not  kill  — 

And  on  those  lips  of  his  that  sang  no  more, 

That  world-loathed  head  which  she  found  lovely  still, 
Her  cold  lips  closed,  in  death  she  had  her  will. 

Oh  wreck  of  the  lost  human  soul  left  free 

To  gorge  the  beast  thy  mask  of  manhood  screened ! 
Because  one  living  thing,  albeit  a  slave, 
Shed  those  hot  tears  on  thy  dishonoured  grave, 
Although  thy  curse  be  as  the  shoreless  sea, 

Because  she  loved,  thou  art  not  wholly  fiend. 
1881. 


50 


IMPERATOR  AUGUSTUS 


I 


S  this  the  man  by  whose  decree  abide 

The  lives  of  countless  nations,  with  the  trace 
Of  fresh  tears  wet  upon  the  hard  cold  face  ? 
He  wept,  because  a  little  child  had  died. 


They  set  a  marble  image  by  his  side, 
A  sculptured  Eros,  ready  for  the  chase ; 
It  wore  the  dead  boy's  features,  and  the  grace 

Of  pretty  ways  that  were  the  old  man's  pride. 

And  so  he  smiled,  grown  softer  now,  and  tired 
Of  too  much  empire,  and  it  seemed  a  joy 

Fondly  to  stroke  and  pet  the  curly  head, 

The  smooth  round  limbs  so  strangely  like  the  dead, 
To  kiss  the  white  lips  of  his  marble  boy 

And  call  by  name  his  little  heart's-desired. 

1879. 


51 


"  ATQUE  IN  PERPETUUM  FRATER  AVE  ATQUE 


VALE  ' 


THIS  was  the  end  love  made,  —  the  hard- 
drawn  breath, 
The  last  long  sigh  that  ever  man  sighs  here ; 
And  then  for  us,  the  great  unanswered  fear, 
Will  love  live  on,  —  the  other  side  of  death  ? 

Only  a  year,  and  I  had  hoped  to  spend 
A  life  of  pleasant  communing,  to  be 
A  kindred  spirit  holding  fast  to  thee, 

We  never  thought  that  love  had  such  an  end. 

This  was  the  end  love  made,  for  our  delight, 
For  one  sweet  year  he  cannot  take  away  ;  — 

Those  tapers  burning  in  the  dim  half-light, 
Those  kneeling  women  with  a  cross  that  pray, 

And  there,  beneath  green  leaves  and  lilies  white, 
Beyond  the  reach  of  love,  our  loved  one  lay. 

1879. 


52 


ON  THE  BORDER  HILLS 


SO  the  dark  shadows  deepen  in  the  trees 
That  crown  the  border  mountains,  all  the  air 
Is  filled  with  mist-begotten  phantasies, 

Shaped  and  transfigured  in  the  sunset  glare. 
What  wildly  spurring  warrior-wraiths  are  these  ? 
What  tossing  headgear,  and  what  red-gold  hair? 
What  lances  flashing,  what  far  trumpet's  blare 
That  dies  along  the  desultory  breeze  ? 

Slow  night  comes  creeping  with  her  misty  wings 
Up  to  the  hill's  crest,  where  the  yew  trees  grow ; 
About  their  shadow-haunted  circle  clings 

The  rumour  of  an  unrecorded  woe, 
Old  as  the  battle  of  those  border  kings 
Slain  in  the  darkling  hollow-lands  below. 

1881. 


53 


SONGS 


LONG  AFTER 


I   SEE  your  white  arms  gliding, 
In  music  o'er  the  keys, 
Long  drooping  lashes  hiding 
A  blue  like  summer  seas  : 
The  sweet  lips  wide  asunder, 

That  tremble  as  you  sing, 
I  could  not  choose  but  wonder, 
You  seemed  so  fair  a  thing. 

For  all  these  long  years  after 

The  dream  has  never  died, 
I  still  can  hear  your  laughter, 

Still  see  you  at  my  side  ; 
One  lily  hiding  under 

The  waves  of  golden  hair ; 
I  could  not  choose  but  wonder, 

You  were  so  strangely  fair. 

57 


58  LONG    AFTER 

I  keep  the  flower  you  braided 

Among  those  waves  of  gold, 
The  leaves  are  sere  and  faded, 

And  like  our  love  grown  old. 
Our  lives  have  lain  asunder, 

The  years  are  long,  and  yet, 
I  could  not  choose  but  wonder. 

I  cannot  quite  forget. 

1880. 


"WHERE  THE  RHONE  GOES  DOWN  TO  THE 

SEA" 


A  SWEET  still  night  of  the  vintage  time, 
Where  the  Rhone  goes  down  to  the  sea ; 
The  distant  sound  of  a  midnight  chime 

Comes  over  the  wave  to  me. 
Only  the  hills  and  the  stars  o'erhead 
Bring  back  dreams  of  the  days  long  dead, 
While  the  Rhone  goes  down  to  the  sea. 

The  years  are  long,  and  the  world  is  wide, 
And  we  all  went  down  to  the  sea ; 

The  ripples  splash  as  we  onward  glide, 
And  I  dream  they  are  here  with  me  — 

All  lost  friends  whom  we  all  loved  so, 

In  the  old  mad  life  of  long  ago, 
Who  all  went  down  to  the  sea. 

59 


6o     WHERE    THE    RHONE    GOES    DOWN 


So  we  passed  in  the  golden  days 
With  the  summer  down  to  the  sea. 

They  wander  still  over  weary  ways, 
And  come  not  again  to  me. 

I  am  here  alone  with  the  night  wind's  sigh, 

The  fading  stars,  and  a  dream  gone  by, 
And  the  Rhone  going  down  to  the  sea. 

1880. 


A  SONG  OF  AUTUMN 


ALL  through  the  golden  weather 
Until  the  autumn  fell, 
Our  lives  went  by  together 
So  wildly  and  so  well.  — 

But  autumn's  wind  uncloses 
The  heart  of  all  your  flowers, 

I  think  as  with  the  roses, 
So  hath  it  been  with  ours. 

Like  some  divided  river 

Your  ways  and  mine  will  be, 

—  To  drift  apart  for  ever, 
For  ever  till  the  sea. 

And  yet  for  one  word  spoken, 

One  whisper  of  regret, 
The  dream  had  not  been  broken 

And  love  were  with  us  yet. 
1880. 

61 


Epwros  v  Av8os 


THE  autumn  wind  goes  sighing 
Through  the  quivering  aspen  tree, 
The  swallows  will  be  flying 

Toward  their  summer  sea ; 
The  grapes  begin  to  sweeten 

On  the  trellised  vine  above, 
And  on  my  brows  have  beaten 

The  little  wings  of  love. 
Oh  wind  if  you  should  meet  her 

You  will  whisper  all  I  sing  ! 
Oh  swallow  fly  to  greet  her, 
And  bring  me  word  in  spring ! 
1881. 


62 


ATALANTA 


WAIT  not  along  the  shore,  they  will  not  come  ; 
The  suns  go  down  beyond  the  windy  seas, 
Those  weary  sails  shall  never  wing  them  home 
O'er  this  white  foam  ; 
No  voice  from  these 
On  any  landward  wind  that  dies  among  the  trees. 

Gone  south,  it  may  be,  rudderless,  astray, 
Gone  where  the  winds  and  ocean  currents  bore, 
Out  of  all  tracks  along  the  sea's  highway 

This  many  a  day, 

To  some  far  shore 
Where  never  wild  seas  break,  or  any  fierce  winds  roar. 

For  there  are  lands  ye  never  recked  of  yet 
Between  the  blue  of  stormless  sea  and  sky, 
Beyond  where  any  suns  of  yours  have  set, 
Or  these  waves  fret ; 
And  loud  winds  die 
In  cloudless  summertide,  where  those  far  islands  lie. 

63 


64  ATALANTA 


They  will  not  come  !  for  on  the  coral  shore 
The  good  ship  lies,  by  little  waves  caressed, 
All  stormy  ways  and  wanderings  are  o'er, 

No  more,  no  more  ! 

But  long  sweet  rest, 
In  cool  green  meadow-lands,  that  lie  along  the  West. 

Or  if  beneath  far  fathom  depths  of  waves 
She  lies  heeled  over  by  the  slow  tide's  sweep, 
Deep  down  where  never  any  swift  sea  raves, 

Through  ocean  caves, 

A  dreaming  deep 
Of  softly  gliding  forms,  a  glimmering  world  of  sleep. 

Then  have  they  passed  beyond  the  outer  gate 
Through  death  to  knowledge  of  all  things,  and  so 
From  out  the  silence  of  their  unknown  fate 
They  bid  us  wait, 
Who  only  know 
That  twixt  their  loves  and  ours  the  great  seas 
ebb  and  flow. 


THE  DAISY 


WITH  little  white  leaves  in  the  grasses, 
Spread  wide  for  the  smile  of  the  sun 
It  waits  till  the  daylight  passes, 
And  closes  them  one  by  one. 

I  have  asked  why  it  closed  at  even, 
And  I  know  what  it  wished  to  say  : 

There  are  stars  all  night  in  the  heaven, 
And  I  am  the  star  of  day. 

1881. 


65 


"  WHEN  I  AM  DEAD" 


WHEN  I  am  dead,  my  spirit 
Shall  wander  far  and  free, 
Through  realms  the  dead  inherit 

Of  earth  and  sky  and  sea; 
Through  morning  dawn  and  gloaming, 

By  midnight  moons  at  will, 
By  shores  where  the  waves  are  foaming, 

By  seas  where  the  waves  are  still. 
I,  following  late  behind  you, 

In  wingless  sleepless  flight, 
Will  wander  till  I  find  you, 

In  sunshine  or  twilight ; 
With  silent  kiss  for  greeting 

On  lips  and  eyes  and  head, 
In  that  strange  after-meeting 

Shall  love  be  perfected. 

66 


"WHEN    I    AM    DEAD"  67 

We  shall  lie  in  summer  breezes 

And  pass  where  whirlwinds  go, 
And  the  Northern  blast  that  freezes 

Shall  bear  us  with  the  snow. 
We  shall  stand  above  the  thunder, 

And  watch  the  lightnings  hurled 
At  the  misty  mountains  under, 

Of  the  dim  forsaken  world. 
We  shall  find  our  footsteps'  traces, 

And  passing  hand  in  hand 
By  old  familiar  places, 

We  shall  laugh,  and  understand. 

1881. 


AFTER  HEINE 


THE  leaves  are  falling,  falling, 
The  yellow  treetops  wave, 
Ah,  all  delight  and  beauty- 
Is  drawing  to  the  grave. 

About  the  wood's  crest  flicker 
The  wan  sun's  laggard  rays, 

They  are  the  parting  kisses 
Of  fleeting  summer  days. 

Meseems  I  should  be  shedding 
The  heart's-tears  from  my  eyes, 

The  day  will  keep  recalling 
The  time  of  our  good-byes  : 

I  knew  that  you  were  dying 

And  I  must  pass  away, 
Oh  I  was  the  waning  summer, 

And  you  were  the  wood's  decay. 
1881. 

68 


"THOSE  DAYS  ARE  LONG  DEPARTED" 


THOSE  days  are  long  departed, 
Gone  where  the  dead  dreams  are, 
Since  we  two  children  started 
To  look  for  the  morning  star. 

We  asked  our  way  of  the  swallow 
In  his  language  that  we  knew, 

We  were  sad  we  could  not  follow 
So  swift  the  blue  bird  flew. 

We  set  our  wherry  drifting 

Between  the  poplar  trees, 
And  the  banks  of  meadows  shifting 

Were  the  shores  of  unknown  seas. 

We  talked  of  the  white  snow  prairies 

That  lie  by  the  Northern  lights, 

And  of  woodlands  where  the  fairies 

Are  seen  in  the  moonlit  nights. 

69 


70"THOSE    DAYS    LONG    DEPARTED" 

Till  one  long  day  was  over 

And  we  grew  too  tired  to  roam, 

And  through  the  corn  and  clover 
We  slowly  wandered  home. 

Ah  child  !  with  love  and  laughter 

We  had  journeyed  out  so  far; 
We  who  went  in  the  big  years  after 

To  look  for  another  star ; 

But  I  go  unbefriended 

Through  wind  and  rain  and  foam,  — 
One  day  was  hardly  ended 

When  the  angel  took  you  home. 

1881. 


A  STAR-DREAM 


THERE  was  a  night  when  you  and  I 
Looked  up  from  where  we  lay, 
When  we  were  children,  and  the  sky 
Was  not  so  far  away. 

We  looked  toward  the  deep  dark  blue 

Beyond  our  window  bars, 
And  into  all  our  dreaming  drew 

The  spirit  of  the  stars. 

We  did  not  see  the  world  asleep  — 

We  were  already  there  ! 
We  did  not  find  the  way  so  steep 

To  climb  that  starry  stair. 

And  faint  at  first  and  fitfully, 
Then  sweet  and  shrill  and  near, 

We  heard  the  eternal  harmony 
That  only  angels  hear ; 
71 


72  .     A    STAR-DREAM 

And  many  a  hue  of  many  a  gem 
We  found  for  you  to  wear, 

And  many  a  shining  diadem 
To  bind  about  your  hair ; 

We  saw  beneath  us  faint  and  far 

The  little  cloudlets  strewn, 
And  I  became  a  wandering  star, 
And  you  became  my  moon. 

Ah  !  have  you  found  our  starry  skies  ? 

Where  are  you  all  the  years  ? 
Oh,  moon  of  many  memories ! 

Oh,  star  of  many  tears  ! 

1881. 


AFTER  HEINE 


BEAUTIFUL  fisherman's  daughter, 
Steer  in  your  bark  to  the  land ! 
Come  down  to  me  over  the  water 

And  talk  to  me  hand  in  hand  ! 
Lay  here  on  my  heart  those  tresses, 

For  look,  what  have  you  to  fear 
Who  are  bold  with  the  sea's  caresses 

Every  day  in  the  year  ? 
My  heart  is  at  one  with  the  deep 

In  its  storm,  in  its  ebb  and  flow, 
And  ah !  There  are  pearls  asleep 

In  cavernous  depths  below. 

1880. 


73 


AFTER  HEINE 


HOW  the  mirrored  moonbeams  quiver 
On  the  waters'  fall  and  rise, 
Yet  the  moon  serene  as  ever 

Wanders  through  the  quiet  skies. 

Like  the  mirrored  moonlight's  fretting 
Are  the  dreams  I  have  of  you, 

For  my  heart  will  beat,  forgetting 
You  are  ever  calm  and  true. 


74 


ENDYMION 


SHE  came  upon  me  in  the  middle  day, 
Bowed  o'er  the  waters  of  a  mountain  mere; 
Where  dimly  mirrored  in  the  ripple's  play 
I  saw  some  fair  thing  near. 

I  saw  the  waters  lapping  round  her  feet, 

The  widening  rings  spread,  follow  out  and  die, 
I  saw  the  mirror  and  the  mirrored  meet, 
And  heard  a  voice  hard  by. 

So  I,  Endymion,  who  lay  bathing  there, 

Half-hidden  in  the  coolness  of  the  lake, 
Looked  up  and  swept  away  my  long  wild  hair, 
And  knew  a  goddess  spake ; 

A  form  white  limbed  and  peerless,  far  above 

The  very  fairest  of  imagined  things, 
The  perfect  vision  of  a  dream  of  love 

Stepped  through  the  water-rings  ; 

75 


76  ENDYMION 


That  breathed  soft  names  and  drew  me  to  her  arms, 

White  arms  and  clinging  in  a  long  caress, 
And  won  me  willing,  by  the  magic  charms 
Of  perfect  loveliness : 

Till  on  my  breast  a  throbbing  bosom  lies; 

The  dim  hills  waver  and  the  dark  woods  roll, 
For  all  the  longing  of  two  glorious  eyes 
Takes  hold  upon  my  soul. 

Then  only  when  the  sudden  darkness  fell 
Upon  the  silver  of  the  mountain  mere, 
And  through  the  pine  trees  of  the  slanting  dell, 
The  moon  rose  cold  and  clear, 

I  seemed  alone  upon  the  dewy  shore, — 

For  she  had  left  me  as  she  came  unwarned  ;  — 
And  fell  from  sighing  into  sleep,  before 
The  summer  morning  dawned. 

What  wonder  now  I  find  no  maiden  fair 

Who  dwells  between  these  mountains  and  the  seas  ? 
And  go  unloving  and  unloved,  or  ere 
I  turn  to  such  as  these. 


ENDYMION  77 


What  wonder  if  the  light  of  those  wide  eyes 

Makes  other  eyes  seem  cold ;  for  that  loud  laughter 
Lost  love  has  nothing  left  but  sighs 
For  all  the  time  hereafter. 

Yet  better  so,  far  better,  no  regret 

Can  touch  my  heart  for  that  sweet  memory's  sake, 
But  only  sighing  for  the  sun  that  set 
Behind  the  summer  lake. 

But  yestermorn  it  was,  the  second  night 

Comes  softly  stealing  over  yon  blue  steep ; 
The  world  grows  silent  in  the  fading  light, 
There  is  no  joy  but  sleep. 

—  I  cannot  bear  her  fair  face  in  the  skies 

Beyond  the  drowsy  waving  of  the  trees,  — 
A  soft  breeze  kisses  round  my  heavy  eyes, 
A  restful  summer  breeze. 

What  means  this  dreamless  apathy  of  sleep  ? 

—  A  mist  steals  over  the  dim  lake,  the  shore, 
Until  my  closing  eyes  forget  to  weep  — 
Oh,  let  me  wake  no  more ! 


DISILLUSION 


AH  !  what  would  youth  be  doing 
To  hoist  his  crimson  sails, 
To  leave  the  wood-doves  cooing, 

The  song  of  nightingales ; 
To  leave  this  woodland  quiet 

For  murmuring  winds  at  strife, 
For  waves  that  foam  and  riot 
About  the  seas  of  life  ? 

From  still  bays  silver  sanded 
Wild  currents  hasten  down, 

To  rocks  where  ships  are  stranded 
And  eddies  where  men  drown. 

Far  out,  by  hills  surrounded, 
Is  the  golden  haven  gate, 

And  all  beyond  unbounded 

Are  shoreless  seas  of  fate. 

78 


DISILLUSION  79 

They  steer  for  those  far  highlands 

Across  the  summer  tide, 
And  dream  of  fairy  islands 

Upon  the  further  side. 
They  only  see  the  sunlight, 

The  flashing  of  gold  bars, 
But  the  other  side  is  moonlight 

And  glimmer  of  pale  stars. 

They  will  not  heed  the  warning 

Blown  back  on  every  wind, 
For  hope  is  born  with  morning, 

The  secret  is  behind. 
Whirled  through  in  wild  confusion 

They  pass  the  narrow  strait, 
To  the  sea  of  disillusion 

That  lies  beyond  the  gate. 


REQUIESCAT 


HE  had  the  poet's  eyes, 
—  Sing  to  him  sleeping, 
Sweet  grace  of  low  replies, 

—  Why  are  we  weeping? 

He  had  the  gentle  ways, 

—  Fair  dreams  befall  him!  — 
Beauty  through  all  his  days, 

—  Then  why  recall  him  ?  — 

That  which  in  him  was  fair 

Still  shall  be  ours  : 
Yet,  yet  my  heart  lies  there 

Under  the  flowers. 

1881. 


80 


IN  CHARTRES  CATHEDRAL 


THROUGH  yonder  windows  stained  and  old 
Four  level  rays  of  red  and  gold 
Strike  down  the  twilight  dim, 
Four  lifted  heads  are  aureoled 

Of  the  sculptured  cherubim, 
And  soft  like  sounds  on  faint  winds  blown 

» 

Of  voices  dying  far  away, 
The  organ's  dreamy  undertone, 

The  murmur  while  they  pray ; 
And  I  sit  here  alone  alone 

And  have  no  word  to  say ; 
Cling  closer  shadows,  darker  yet, 
And  heart  be  happy  to  forget. 

And  now,  the  mystic  silence  —  and  they  kneel 
A  young  priest  lifts  a  star  of  gold,  — 

And  then  the  sudden  organ  peal ! 
Ave  and  Ave  !  and  the  music  rolled 

81 


82  IN    CHARTRES    CATHEDRAL 

Along  the  carven  wonder  of  the  choir 
Thrilled  canopy  and  spire, 
Up  till  the  echoes  mingled  with  the  song ; 

And  now  a  boy's  flute  note  that  rings 
Shrill  sweet  and  long, 

Ave  and  Ave,  louder  and  more  loud 
Rises  the  strain  he  sings, 
Upon  the  angel's  wings  ! 
Right  up  to  God  ! 

And  you  that  sit  there  in  the  lowliest  place, 
With  lips  that  hardly  dare  to  move, 

You  with  the  old  sad  furrowed  face 
Dream  on  your  dream  of  love  ! 

For  you,  glide  down  the  music's  swell 
The  folding  arms  of  peace, 

For  me  wild  thoughts,  I  dare  not  tell 
Desires  that  never  cease. 

For  you  the  calm,  the  angel's  breast 

Whose  dim  foreknowledge  is  at  rest ; 
For  me  the  beat  of  broken  wings 
The  old  unanswered  questionings. 


HIC  JACET 


DID  you  play  here  child 
The  whole  spring  through 
And  smiled  and  smiled 
And  never  knew  ?  — 
Where  the  shade  is  cool 

And  the  grass  grows  deep, 
One  that  was  beautiful 
Lies  in  his  sleep. 

Ah  no  child,  never 

Will  he  arise, 
The  sleep  was  for  ever 

That  closed  his  eyes. 
And  his  bed  is  strewn 

Deep  underground, 
He  was  tired  so  soon, 

And  now  sleeps  sound. 
83 


84  HIC    JACET 

When  the  first  birds  sing 

We  can  hear  them,  dear, 
And  in  early  spring 

There  are  snowdrops  here. 
For  the  flowers  love  him 

That  lies  below, 
And  ever  above  him 

The  daisies  grow. 

"  Shall  we  look  down  deep 

Where  he  hides  away  ? 
Shall  we  find  him  asleep  ?  " 

Yes  child,  some  day. 
But  his  palace  gate 

Is  so  hard  to  see, 
We  two  must  wait 

For  the  angel's  key. 


AT  TIBER  MOUTH 


THE  low  plains  stretch  to  the  west  with  a 
glimmer  of  rustling  weeds, 
Where  the  waves  of  a  golden  river  wind  home  by 

the  marshy  meads ; 
And  the  strong  wind  born  of  the  sea  grows  faint 

with  a  sickly  breath, 
As  it  stays  in  the  fretting  rushes  and  blows  on 

the  dews  of  death. 
We  came  to  the  silent  city,  in  the  glare  of  the 

noontide  heat, 
When  the  sound  of  a  whisper  rang  through  the 

length  of  the  lonely  street ; 
No  tree  in  the  clef  ted  ruin,  no  echo  of  song  nor 

sound, 
But  the  dust  of  a  world  forgotten  lay  under  the 

barren  ground. 
There  are  shrines  under  these  green  hillocks  to 

the  beautiful  gods  that  sleep, 

85 


86  AT    TIBER    MOUTH 

Where  they  prayed  in  the  stormy  season  for  lives 

gone  out  on  the  deep ; 
And    here    in   the  grave   street  sculptured,   old 

record  of  loves  and  tears, 
By  the  dust  of  the  nameless  slave,  forgotten  a 

thousand  years. 
Not  ever  again  at  even  shall  ship  sail  in  on  the 

breeze, 
Where    the    hulls   of  their  gilded  galleys  came 

home  from  a  hundred  seas, 
For  the  marsh    plants   grow   in  her  haven,  the 

marsh  birds  breed  in  her  bay, 
And  a  mile  to  the  shoreless  westward  the  water 

has  passed  away. 
But  the  sea-folk  gathering  rushes  come  up  from 

the  windy  shore, 
So  the  song  that  the  years  have  silenced  grows 

musical  there  once  more ; 
And   now  and  again   unburied,   like   some   still 

voice  from  the  dead, 
They  light  on  the  fallen  shoulder  and  the  lines  of 

a  marble  head. 
But  we  went  from  the  sorrowful  city  and  wan- 
dered away  at  will, 


AT    TIBER    MOUTH  87 

And  thought  of  the  breathing  marble  and  the 

words  that  are  music  still. 
How  full  were  their  lives  that  laboured,  in  their 

fetterless  strength  and  far 
From  the  ways  that  our  feet  have  chosen  as  the 

sunlight  is  from  the  star, 
They  clung  to  the  chance  and  promise  that  once 

while  the  years  are  free 
Look  over  our  life's  horizon    as  the  sun  looks 

over  the  sea, 
But  we  wait  for  a  day  that  dawns  not,  and  cry 

for  unclouded  skies, 
And  while  we  are  deep  in  dreaming  the  light  that 

was  o'er  us  dies ; 
We  know  not  what  of  the  present  we  shall  stretch 

out  our  hand  to  save 
Who  sing  of  the  life  we  long  for,  and  not  of  the 

life  we  have  ; 
And  yet  if  the  chance  were  with  us  to  gather  the 

days  misspent, 
Should    we   change   the   old    resting-places,  the 

wandering  ways  we  went  ? 
They  were    strong,  but  the  years  are  stronger ; 

they  are  grown  but  a  name  that  thrills, 


88  ATTIBERMOUTH 

And  the  wreck  of  their  marble  glory  lies  ghost- 
like over  their  hills. 

So  a  shadow  fell  o'er  our  dreaming  for  the  weary 
heart  of  the  past, 

For  the  seed  that  the  years  have  scattered,  to 
reap  so  little  at  last. 

And  we  went  to  the  sea-shore  forest,  through  a 
long  colonnade  of  pines, 

Where  the  skies  peep  in  and  the  sea,  with  a  flit- 
ting of  silver  lines. 

And  we  came  on  an  open  place  in  the  green  deep 
heart  of  the  wood 

Where  I  think  in  the  years  forgotten  an  altar  of 
Faunus  stood ; 

From  a  spring  in  the  long  dark  grasses  two  rivu- 
lets rise  and  run 

By  the  length  of  their  sandy  borders  where  the 
snake  lies  coiled  in  the  sun. 

And  the  stars  of  the  white  narcissus  lie  over  the 
grass  like  snow, 

And  beyond  in  the  shadowy  places  the  crimson 
cyclamens  grow ; 


ATTIBERMOUTH  89 

Far  up  from  their  wave  home  yonder  the  sea- 
winds  murmuring  pass, 

The  branches  quiver  and  creak  and  the  lizard 
starts  in  the  grass. 

And  we  lay  in  the  untrod  moss  and  pillowed 
our  cheeks  with  flowers, 

While  the  sun  went  over  our  heads,  and  we  took 
no  count  of  the  hours ; 

From  the  end  of  the  waving  branches  and  under 
the  cloudless  blue 

Like  sunbeams  chained  for  a  banner  the  thread- 
like gossamers  flew. 

And  the  joy  of  the  woods  came  o'er  us,  and  we 
felt  that  our  world  was  young 

With    the    gladness    of  years    unspent  and    the 
sorrow  of  life  unsung. 

So  we  passed  with  a  sound  of  singing  along  to 
the  seaward  way, 

Where  the  sails  of  the  fishermen  folk  came  home- 
ward over  the  bay ; 

For  a  cloud  grew  over  the  forest  and  darkened 
the  sea-god's  shrine, 

And  the  hills  of  the  silent  city  were  only  a  ruby 
line. 


90  ATTIBERMOUTH 


But  the  sun  stood  still  on  the  waves  as  we  passed 

from  the  fading  shores, 
And  shone  on  our  boat's  red  bulwarks  and  the 

golden  blades  of  the  oars, 
And  it  seemed  as  we  steered  for  the  sunset  that 

we  passed  through  a  twilight  sea, 
From  the  gloom  of  a  world  forgotten  to  the  light 

of  a  world  to  be. 

Rome,  1881. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


"It  is  fair  to  accept  the  statement  of  his 
[Wilde's]  own  ground,  in  his  preface  to  the 
decorative  verse  of  his  friend  Rennell  Rodd, 
though  one  doubts  whether  Gautier  would  not 
have  dubbed  the  tvj&mjeunes  brodeurs,  rather 
than  jeunes  guerriers,  du  drapeau  romantique. 
The  apostles  of  our  Lord  were  filled,  like  them, 
with  a  '  passionate  ambition  to  go  forth  into  far 
and  fair  lands  with  some  message  for  the 
nations  and  some  mission  for  the  world.'  But 
not  until  many  centuries  had  passed  were  their 
texts  illuminated  to  the  extent  displayed  by 
Mr.  Rodd  and  his  printer,  with  their  resources 
of  India-paper,  apple-green  tissue,  vellum,  and 
all  the  rarities  desired  by  those  who  die  of  a 
rose  in  aromatic  pain.  Yet  the  verse  of  Rose 
Leaf  and  Apple  Leaf  is  not  so  effeminate  as 
one  would  suppose." 

E.  C.  Stedman 
Victorian  Poets.  (1889,)  pp.  467-8. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


i.  Rose  Leaf/ and  Apple  Leaf/by/Rennell 
rodd  /  with  an  introduction  by  /  oscar 
Wilde  (Seal  device  in  red.)  /  Philadelphia/ 
J.  M.  Stoddart  &  Co.  /  1882. 

i2mo.  Vellum.  Pp.115.  Interleaved  with  green 
tissue  throughout,  and  printed  in  brown  ink  on 
thin  handmade  parchment  paper  on  one  side  of  the 
leaf. 

2.  Rose  Leaf /and /Apple  Leaf/by/Rennell 
Ross  /  with  an  Introduction  by  /  Oscar 
Wilde.  (Seal  device  in  red.) /J.  M.  Stoddart 
&  Co./ 1882. 

i2mo.  Cloth.  Pp.115.  Printed  in  black  ink  on 
cream  laid  book  paper,  without  interleaving  of 
tissue. 

This  edition  must  have  been  re-imposed  as  it  is 
here  printed  on  both  sides  of  the  leaf. 

93 


94         BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE 

3.  Rose  Leaf  and  Apple  Leaf  /  L'Envoi  /  By  / 
Oscar  Wilde/  London/  Printed  for  Private 
Circulation/  Mdcccciiil 

i2mo.  Wrappers.  Pp.  32  (including  half-title 
and  blanks).     200  numbered  copies  issued. 

4.  Rose  Leaf  and  Apple  Leaf:  L'Envoi  By 
Wilde. 

Sq.  i6mo.  Printed  in  The  Bibelot  for  July,  1905. 
Pp.  221-237. 

5.  Lecture  on  the  English  Renaissance:  Rose 
Leaf  and  Apple  Leaf:  L'Envoi  By  Oscar 
Wilde.  Portland,  Maine,  Thomas  B.  Mosher. 

Mdccccv. 

i 

Small  quarto  (5^  x  7).  Pp.  x  :  1-42.  50  copies 
on  Japan  vellum,  with  portrait  of  Wilde  as  frontis- 
piece. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE         95 


II 


In  taking  an  assignment  of  copyright  from  the  sur- 
viving member  of  the  firm  of  J.  M.  Stoddart  &  Co.  it 
has  been  thought  desirable  to  ascertain  how  Rose  Leaf 
and  Apple  Leaf  came  into  existence  in  the  peculiar 
format  which  has  long  since  set  it  apart  as  one  of  the 
choicest  specimens  of  applied  aesthetics  in  book-making 
that  America  has  to  offer  the  collector.  Under  date 
of  August  17,  1905,  Mr.  Stoddart  wrote  as  follows: 

"  I  gladly  furnish  you  with  such  information  regard- 
ing this  book  as  my  memory  of  a  quarter  of  a  century 
permits. 

The  paper  used  in  the  edition  de  luxe  was  a  remain- 
der which  we  found  in  the  possession  of  a  Philadelphia 
paper  dealer,  (Charles  Megargee,  if  I  remember  cor- 
rectly), and  was  made  at  the  famous  Rittenhouse  Mill 
on  the  Wissahickon,  (near  Philadelphia  and  said  to  be 
the  first  paper  mill  in  America),  for  the  (new)  Govern, 
ment  of  the  United  States  at  the  time  of  the  first  issue 
of  bonds  or  paper  money.  It  therefore  has  a  historical 
interest  as  well  as  a  unique  character. 

I  think  this  edition  was  not  over  250  copies  and  price 
#1.75,  but  Brentano  sold  many  of  these  for  $3.00  and 


96         BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE 

more,  after  having  secured  Wilde's  autograph  on  the 
cover.  This  edition  is  now  certainly  out  of  print  and 
so  far  as  I  know  impossible  to  procure  anywhere.  I 
have  heard  of  copies  changing  hands  at  $5.00. 

The  cheaper  edition  was  issued  at  $1.00  but  compar- 
atively few  sold  as  I  was  interested  in  greater  matters 
and  transferred  the  stock  to  J.  B.  Lippincott  &  Co., 
where  the  lot  was  consumed  in  their  fire. 

I  think  the  whole  credit  for  the  green  leaves,  and  the 
general  oddity  of  the  make-up  of  the  book  belongs  to 
our  office  altho'  Wilde  may  have  been  consulted.  Of 
course  you  recognize  the  reproduction  of  his  seal." 

All  the  circumstances  connected  with  the  publication 
of  Rose  Leaf  and  Apple  Leaf  are  confessedly  not 
entirely  clear  to  us.  It  is  undoubtedly  true,  as  stated 
in  the  N.  Y.  Tribune,  (November  25,  1882,)  that  "  Mr. 
Rennell  Rodd,  the  young  English  poet  whose  verses 
were  brought  out  here  in  apple -green  and  rose- red 
under  the  enthusiastic  auspices  of  Mr.  Oscar  Wilde, 
has  altered  in  his  faith.  He  now  disclaims  any  con- 
nection with  the  aesthetic  school,  and  lets  it  be  known 
that  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  amazing  dress  in 
which  his  verses  appeared.  He  intends  to  publish  a 
new  volume."  This  "newsy"  note  was  based  on  a 
briefer  one  made  just  two  weeks  earlier  in  The  Acad- 
emy, (London,  November  II,  1882,)  viz. :  "  We  under- 
stand that  Mr.  Rennell  Rodd  has  a  new  volume  of 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE  97 

poems  in  the  press.  He  is  anxious  to  disclaim  any 
connection  with  the  "  Esthetic  "  school,  with  which  he 
has  been  identified." 

It  may  here  be  said  that  Mr.  R  odd's  first  impressions 
were  somewhat  different  from  what  the  above  implies. 
In  a  letter  dated  October  6,  1882,  he  wrote  the  Amer- 
ican publisher : 

"  I  had  not  till  lately  seen  the  little  edition,  —  which 
is  charming.  I  have  seen  no  edition  de  luxe  in  Eng- 
land to  compare  with  it.  ...  I  have  to  thank  you  for 
the  great  care  and  delicacy  with  which  this  little  book 
has  been  published." 

What  undoubtedly  precipitated  the  trouble  was  not 
the  format,  "  amazing  "  though  it  may  have  seemed  to 
the  nameless  scribe  of  the  Tribune,  but  the  proposal 
by  the  Stoddart  firm  to  bring  out  an  English  edition. 
This  could  not  be  done,  as  Mr.  Rodd  pointed  out, 
because  the  poems  had  already  been  published  in  Lon- 
don, and  as  he  held  the  copyright,  they  could  not  be 
reissued  save  with  his  consent.  Furthermore :  "  Since 
I  have  read  the  introduction  I  am  not  over  pleased  at 
the  way  in  which  I  find  myself  identified  with  much 
that  I  have  no  sympathy  with."  Last  of  all,  probably 
first  of  all,  "  there  is  one  thing  in  it  that  has  annoyed 
me  excessively,  and  had  I  had  a  proof  I  should  not  have 
allowed  it  to  stand.  The  dedication  is  too  effusive.  I 
have  written  to  Mr.  Wilde  on  this  score,  but  if  he  does 


98         BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE 

not  write  to  you,  I  must  ask  you  as  a  personal  favour 
to  see  to  it.  I  want  to  have  it  removed  from  all  copies 
that  go  out  for  the  future.1' 

Unfortunately  Mr.  Rodd's  request  could  not  well  be 
complied  with  :  the  book  had  been  published,  and  as  it 
turned  out  no  other  edition  was  ever  called  for  by  a 
more  or  less  undiscerning  public. 

A  fewT  other  facts  are  in  evidence.  The  original 
title  of  the  work  as  published  by  Rodd  through  David 
Bogue,  London,  1881,  was  Songs  in  the  South  and  the 
dedication  read  "  To  My  Father."  It  is  conjectured  that 
the  dedication  in  the  American  edition  was  either  based 
on,  or  copied  from  an  inscription  written  by  the  author 
in  the  copy  Wilde  brought  over  with  him.  It  read  as 
follows  :  To  /  Oscar  Wilde  —  /  "  Heart's  Brother  "  —  / 
These  few  songs  and  many  songs  to  come"  It  may  have 
been  "  too  effusive."  It  is  seldom,  indeed,  that  we  have 
the  time  and  the  place  and  the  loved  one  all  together  ! 
It  is  not  denied  that  this  inscription  was  written  by 
Mr.  Rodd,  however  effusive,  and  somehow,  after  the 
lapse  of  years  one  wishes  he  had  not  so  completely 
discountenanced  the  kindly  offices  of  one  who  later  on 
fell  into  such  desperate  extremes.  It  is  quite  likely 
that  the  evident  editing  bestowed  upon  the  poems  by 
Wilde  may  have  added  to  the  displeasure  of  the  poet. 
If  so,  we  cannot,  after  an  acquaintance  with  the  original 
London  text  of  1881    agree   with  him.     Two  poems, 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE         99 

"Lucciole"  and  "Maidenhair,"  omitted  by  Wilde 
attest  to  his  critical  acumen,  and  nine  additional  poems 
derived,  we  may  suppose  from  manuscript  sources,  do 
not  lessen  our  respect  for  his  supervising  care. 

The  introduction  itself  was  without  question  a  mat- 
ter of  the  greatest  regret  to  Mr.  Rodd.  It  credited 
him  "with  much  that  annoys  me  excessively."  It  is 
conceded  however,  that  "  it  has  been  kindly  meant"  — 
but  if  a  second  edition  should  be  in  request  —  it  must 
be  u  with  no  introduction  "  —  there  were  available 
other  poems  that  could  be  made  to  take  its  place. 

Admitting  that  Wilde  went  beyond  the  spirit,  if  not 
the  letter  of  his  friend's  intent,  it  is  a  relief  to  find 
Rodd's  admission  that  "  where  a  thing  has  been  kindly 
meant,  one  cannot  find  fault.  —  On  reflection  I  see 
how  foolish  it  was  to  make  no  reservations  and  restric- 
tions of  any  kind  —  For  that  very  reason  I  have  no 
excuse  to  make  any  complaint."  But  still  harping  on 
the  supposedly  bad  effects  of  Wilde's  L Envoi:  "It 
did  not  occur  to  me  at  the  time  that  I  should  be  so 
completely  identified  with  a  lot  of  opinions  with  which 
I  have  no  sympathy  whatever."  With  this  disclaimer 
our  quotations  from  the  Rodd  letters  come  to  an  end. 

Well,  after  all  is  said  what  does  it  matter  ?  The 
thing  we  care  for  most  is  just  this  brief,  brilliant  essay ; 
as  for  the  verse  it  is  in  the  main  well  and  good,  despite 
benefits    forgot.      Some   of   it   we   feel   assured   will 


ioo       BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE 

survive,  has  indeed,  lived  to  find  its  way  into  many 
anthologies.  As  for  the  exquisite  little  causerie  it 
remains  to  us  safe  and  secure,  veritable  treasure -trove 
of  unsullied  gold  against  the  years  that  the  locust 
hath  eaten. 

T.  B.  M. 


J       > 
>      »    > 


>  >    > 

>  >     » 


1     •;»»»»»  »»*» 

»  »      •      * 


HERE  ENDS  THIS  BOOK  OF  ROSE 
LEAF  AND  APPLE  LEAF  BY  RENNELL 
RODD  WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION 
BY  OSCAR  WILDE  PRINTED  FOR 
THOMAS  B  MOSHER  AND  PUBLISHED 
BY  HIM  AT  XLV  EXCHANGE  STREET 
PORTLAND  MAINE  IN  THE  MONTH 
OF  AUGUST    A  D    MDCCCCVI 


'   •   «.    <  a 


RCTUKN    lOAN  DEPT. 


interlibrarY  loan 


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